An Online Resource for the Ever-Changing LED Display Industry - powered by Vantage LED USA

Thursday, October 4, 2012

EMC- Specification Switchout

- Mike Prongue

Imagine
if you will, you are the sales manager at an exclusive automobile
dealership specializing in importing Italian sports cars. Brand names
are not important for this exercise, but think “red, shiny, fast, 750
horsepower and expensive.”Your
client, Daniel J. Smith, Esq., corporate lawyer for a Fortune 500
company has walked into your 11th Avenue exotic sports car showroom in
Manhattan.“Good
morning Don,” Mr. Smith said, extending his hand for a firm shake, his
diamond cufflinks showing from under the cuff of his Gieves & Hawkes
custom-tailored $4,000 suit. Mr. Smith is 52 years-old and an exacting
professional who does not always please easily“Let me look at my new car,” he said with excitement.“Well
Mr. Smith, we are almost done with the final detailing and it should be
ready within the hour, “ you say smiling, “I know you’ve waited three
months for this car, and it was hand-assembled to your specification
requests.”“But…” you say, as the showroom clears out and a deathly silence descends.“They changed the color from red to green, and the 6-speed transmission was replaced with an automatic.”“No
extra charge!” you add, failing in your desperate attempt at levity.
You can see the legal papers already being filed at the courthouse.Of
course this type of last minute switch-out would create an issue of
apocalyptic proportion and would never be tolerated by the car
dealership or any customer.In
the Electronic Message Center (EMC) industry, this happens every day, much more so with imported projects. Manufacturers need not be named
as it occurs across a broad spectrum of suppliers.What
does a Sign Company or EMC distributor do when this
occurs? What leverage do they have? It seems like very little, actually.The
Sign Company or EMC distributor placed an order in good faith usually
after receiving a deposit from the customer. They ordered the project
from some supplier, sometimes off-shore, precisely communicating the exact
specifications the customer requested, money is wired to begin the
project and the final payment is wired before the project ships, usually
about 6-weeks later.The
customer is waiting. The EMC comes in and it is the wrong pixel size,
has rear opening cabinets instead of front removable modules, or the
amber grayscale request has been changed out with a red screen.Two
and a half months have passed since the order was placed and the
project is late, having been placed on an extended hold in US Customs at
the Long Beach, CA port. Now it must be installed in only 7 days to
support the grand opening of an auto parts store. The clock is ticking!You
can’t send it back to China (for example), as it would take at least 4
weeks to get there. What do you do? Make excuses or give the customer a
discount? Not good enough to ensure a customer for a week much less a
customer for life. There is no good strategy at this point.You
can call and complain and perhaps get a discount on the next order, but
then somehow that order is also wrong and now you have two compromised
customers and the dysfunction continues.Project
specifications for your order are not wishes- they are a precise
requirement. When an order is placed however, it never seems to occur to
the Sign Company or EMC distributor that such an egregious
error could happen. The Sign Company may never know if the system was
manufactured in “error” or if it was actually a pre-built project which
had been canceled by some other customer ("close enough" to match the
dealer's order). This is called a “switch
out”. One never knows, does one?

It
is important to know your supplier, have legal recourse, have timely
production updates, and a signed sales order showing you exactly what to
expect. Ordering an EMC is not game of roulette if you have done your
homework by calling references and checking them out. As they say “You
get what you inspect, rather than what you expect.”So,
it’s critical to choose wisely and do not become the victim of the
“last minute switch out”. It does happen every day in the EMC industry. Isolated
production mistakes with U.S. manufacturers can be rapidly resolved
because contract law is honored here and solutions can be shipped
rapidly. Rectifying the much more common international situation,
perhaps a last-minute “switch out”, is an entirely different problem and
for which a good solution remains elusive.**Note
all posts/thoughts/writings are strictly the viewpoint of me and me
alone and do not reflect nor speak for Vantage LED’s beliefs, attitudes,
thoughts, etc. unless specifically stated.